Letters: Share your tips, questions, and comments

Cold Blooded Chillers
The you can do it article “Buggin’: A plan for those bitten by the macro bug” (May 2006) was wrong. Anyone who condones chilling insects to get a shot is inhumane. To take a crerature and endanger its life for a photo can never be right. I take insect macros, but the only chilling that is ever done to mine is by Mother Nature when one strays out into the winter.
William Geddings
Sumter, SC

Clearly, Mother Nature’s been reading our magazine. But also, you’ll be happy to know that photographer Irving J. Olson, who wrote that piece, reports that butterflies and months aren’t that skittish. In other words, they’re cool models without chilling.

© marks the spot
The Cheat Sheet on making a copyright notice brush in photoshop was very handy and very clever (June 2006). As I understand it, in addition to the © symbol and your name, you must include the year of first publication. For many photographers that would coincide with the year it was shot. There’s lots of copyright info at www.copyright.gov.
Peter Billard
Glastonbury, CT

The envelope please…
I really like the full frame sensors, low noise at high ISO, and many features in the latest Canon DSLRs. But there are two issues that disturb meto the point of considering moving to a Nikon:
1. Neither the Canon EOS 30D nor the 5D has a sealed body. As an outdoor photographer, that’s important to me.
2. The $2,670 [street, camera only, after rebate] 5D-Pop Photo’s 2005 Camera of the year- doesn’t have an AF-assist lamp, and I don’t always want to carry my Canon Speedlite 580X flash.
If Canon doesn’t launch new versions of the 5D or 30D with these features I already know what deserves to be the 2006 Camera of the Year: The Nikon D200
Pablo Contreras
Curitiba, Parana, Brazil

Who Killed KM?
Ihor Kuritza’s letter in the May 2006 issue is wrong-camera companies do not drive the market. The market is consumer-driven. No, Konica Minolta did not die because they bet the arm on digital and abandoned film. They probably didn’t move aggressively enough or soon enough into digital. Chances are, it was too little too late.
Terry Scott Reed
Reading, PA

Debbie makes a splash
I loved Debbie Grossman’s “Two RAWs Make a Right” (Digital Toolbox, June 2006). Until I read the article, I didn’t know what to do with this photo I shot with my Nikon D70 at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium. But, now armed with my new skill, I converted my RAW image twice-one with -2 EV and the other 0 EV-and painted a layer mask instead of graduated mask. As you can see, it saved the shot.
Dion Hutchings
Seattle, WA

Every month I am besieged by a long-winded explanation of how to better a photo by Debiie Grossman. Does she know how to take a decent photo, or does she just enjoy correcting errors?
Seymor Topor
Huntington Beach, CA

As Debbie so aptly put it, “Photoshop you, and the horse you rode in on.”